The Artist Impact Movement‘s (AIM) IMPACT Fashion Show has grown from a seed of an idea into a fixture of the Montreal event calendar. It was born from the passion for arts and the desire for a creative platform of three of my dear friends, Maya Berger, Gilad Maianski and Abby Shore. Students at Concordia University and McGill University in 2023, they aspired to create an event where artists at the beginning of their creative journeys were celebrated and where community could come together to contribute to something greater, namely through donating proceeds to important local and global causes.
The IMPACT Fashion Show does just that: local vendors are stationed around the venue, selling hand-made jewelry, paintings, photographs, and even perfumes. Several Canadian fashion designers, most of them still students themselves, display their collections on the runway to an awestruck crowd of hundreds.
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AIM and the IMPACT Fashion Show have persisted past the founders’ own university careers. With new chairs and exec teams and an expansion of the club to Kingston at Queen’s University, AIM shows no signs of stopping.
It’s impressive enough to be among the crowd watching young artist’s creations be applauded, but it’s especially moving to remember the overarching reason. Certainly, AIM gives back to its own community of artists and Montrealers by continuing to offer them a platform for their expression. But their giving back extends beyond art through charitable donations to important causes. Over the last three years, thousands of dollars have been donated to the Montreal Neurological Institute’s brain cancer research, ReThink Breast Cancer, and this year’s charities, The Benji Impact and The Canadian Cholangiocarcinoma Collaborative.
Here are some snaps captured by Vasili Vroulis of the 2025 IMPACT Fashion Show:
